Monthly Archives: March 2004

March 26, 2004 — Paul Mirengoff

The postwar corps

Fred Barnes reports from Baghad on “the postwar corps,” the idealistic volunteers working to make Iraq a free and democratic society. According to Barnes, Paul Bremer has actually had to cut off the flow of volunteers because “there are more than I can possibly take.” (Most of Barnes’ article is available only to subscribers). Rocket Man has said that today, unlike in our youth, “the fun is on the right.” »
March 26, 2004 — Scott Johnson

A question for Richard Clarke

The good folks of the Boston Herald editorial staff have a question for Richard Clarke: We’d like to know how Clarke squares his contention that he was the only one in the Bush administration truly committed to thwarting terrorism before the Sept. 11 attacks with this: It was Clarke who personally authorized the evacuation by private plane of dozens of Saudi citizens, including many members of Osama bin Laden’s own »
March 26, 2004 — Scott Johnson

Lovers and other killers, part 2

Jonah Goldberg is the only columnist I have seen who follows the twisted evil at the core of this week’s foiled suicide bombing by the Arab teen-ager seeking to fulfill a teen-age boy’s fantasy: “Palestinians’ use of kiddy bombers appalling.” Goldberg writes: Hussam Abdu is what the kids today – and yesterday – call a loser. Reports say he’s 14 or 16 years old, but that he looks like he »
March 26, 2004 — Scott Johnson

Chutzpah of the Year Award

Charles Krauthammer has selected Richard Clarke to receive the prestigious Chutzpah of the Year Award in his column today: “Partisan Clarke.” In his conclusion, Krauthammer both echoes points made here on Sunday evening by Rocket Man and adds a zinger of his own: Clarke is clearly an angry man, angry that Condoleezza Rice demoted him, angry that he was denied a coveted bureaucratic job by the Bush administration. Angry and »
March 26, 2004 — Scott Johnson

An open letter to John Kerry

Larry Purdy is a Minneapolis attorney and a friend of ours. He is also a 1968 graduate of the United States Naval Academy who served in Vietnam from December 1969 until December 1970. He was assigned as one of the support personnel with NSA Det An Thoi, the main base for the swift boat group in which John Kerry served in the early part of 1969. Larry is accordingly rather »
March 25, 2004 — John Hinderaker

Coulter Rips Clarke

…in her inimitable way. We were among the first to be on top of the Clarke story, but at this point I can’t take it any more. The consequences of Clarke’s perfidy are bad for the administration–Bush is now down four points to Kerry in the Rasmussen tracking poll–but it is too early to tell whether the damage is permanent. So let’s turn it over to fresh reinforcements in the »
March 25, 2004 — Scott Johnson

Shays’ rebellion

Reader James Lacey has kindly forwarded us a copy of Rep. Christopher Shays’ highly instructive letter dated March 24, 2004 to the 9/11 Commission regarding the testimony of Richard Clarke: As Chairman of the House Government Reform Committee’s National Security Subcommittee, I want to provide some information relevant to testimony today by Mr. Richard Clarke. Before September 11, 2001, we held twenty hearings and two formal briefings on terrorism issues. »
March 25, 2004 — Paul Mirengoff

Some men are born great

and others have greatness thrust upon them. This Guardian newspaper obituary tells us that Hamas’ late leader Ahmed Yassin fell into the latter category. It was his “moral purity” along with his “true sense of service” that Guardian writer David Hurst finds most impressive. Hirst sees Yassin as comparable to Nelson Mandela, but concedes that Mandela is the greater of the two. Hat tip, Daily Ablution, which points us to »
March 25, 2004 — Scott Johnson

Richard Clarke, liar

The transcript of Richard Clarke’s background briefing of Fox News White House reporter Jim Angle and other correspondents in August 2002 rebuts point by point the lurid charges now made by Richard Clarke in his public testimony, his book, and his 60 Minutes appearance flogging his book before a prostrate Lesley Stahl. Yet the examination of Clarke before the 9/11 Commission yesterday more or less allowed him to slither away »
March 24, 2004 — John Hinderaker

Heart of a Champion

The news is all Richard Clarke, all the time, and we’ve done all we can on that front. Frankly, I can’t stand it any more, at least for the moment. So I want to talk about something more cheerful, and the most cheerful thing I know of right now is the University of Minnesota women’s basketball team. Don’t laugh. Like Deacon, who has made some acerbic comments on the quality »
March 24, 2004 — Paul Mirengoff

Could decapitating Hamas conceivably make sense?

For the past few days, the mainstream media has been tut-tutting that the assassination of Ahmed Yassin, the leader of Hamas, will not help Israel in its was against terrorism and, indeed, will only make matters worse. Unless one accepts the bizarre claim that Yassin was really a moderate, it seems odd to argue that his death will prove counter-productive. Intuitively, one would expect that the death of a charismatic »
March 24, 2004 — John Hinderaker

Sue Them Or Shoot Them: The Choice In November

We have often said that the fundamental difference between President Bush’s anti-terror policy and the failed policy of President Clinton, to which John Kerry threatens to return us, is the difference between war and law enforcement. We and others have derided the Clintonites for trying to fight a war with subpoenas and indictments. Some may think this characterization of the pre-Bush era is unfair. So consider this: [The terrorism commission] »
March 24, 2004 — John Hinderaker

Hearings, Clarke, Take Toll

Today’s Rasmussen tracking poll suggests that the terrorism commission’s televised hearings and the publicity surrounding Richard Clarke’s book are having their intended effect. John Kerry has now pulled three points ahead of President Bush. The tracking poll covers the last three nights on a rolling basis, so if it’s true that the hearings and Clarke are behind Bush’s drop, it should intensify over the next couple of days. »
March 24, 2004 — John Hinderaker

Clarke Takes A Beating

Richard Clarke is now testifying before the terrorism commission. In the meantime, he is taking a fearful pounding in the blogosphere. Glenn Reynolds has a good roundup. One of Clarke’s most ridiculous claims was his assertion that when he met with Condoleezza Rice in January 2001, “her facial expression gave me the impression that she had never heard” of al Qaeda. My guess is that Ms. Rice’s facial expression may »
March 24, 2004 — Scott Johnson

Lovers and other killers

Say what you will about the killers in Arafatistan, but they have keen insight into the psychological make-up of teen-age boys. The Jerusalem Post story on today’s apprehended 14-year-old suicide bomber reports: “Blowing myself up is the only chance I’ve got to have sex with 72 virgins in the Garden of Eden,” a 14-and-a-half-year-old Palestinian boy told his Israeli investigators after being caught wearing an 8kg explosives belt. Husam Muhammad »
March 24, 2004 — Paul Mirengoff

Sinking faster than Paul O’Neill

Richard Clarke’s credibility is now in tatters with the discovery of his 2002 interview with Fox News’ Jim Angle. Here’s what Clarke told Angle: CLARKE: January 2001, the incoming Bush administration was briefed on the existing strategy. They were also briefed on these series of issues that had not been decided on in a couple of years. And the third point is the Bush administration decided then, you know, mid-January, »
March 24, 2004 — Scott Johnson

The Real Jimmy Carter

The vast majority of new books published each year are overlong and underneeded. One book that is overdue and badly needed, however, is a critical account of the career of former United States president and current man without a country Jimmy Carter. We are proud to announce that our friend Steve Hayward, author of the indispensable The Age of Reagan, 1964-1980: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, has now »